Sometimes Sunshine

As a child one of the fun things about language were the word games one learnt soon enough to enjoy. None better perhaps than tongue twisters that always translated into nonsense that always succeeded in bringing humour across the generations. From ‘Around the rugged rock, the ragged rascal ran’ to ‘red leather, yellow leather’ one aspect of mastering a language is being able to master its tongue twisters. They are always decidedly odd sentences such as the following. The translationsare included to betray their lack of logic!

combien de sous sont ces saucissons-ci? Ces saucissons-ci sont six sous (French) “How much are these sausages here? These sausages here are six cents.”)

As for the English language, we are provided with the following that also are best interpreted with a healthy stretch of imagination:

How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood? A woodchuck would chuck all the wood that he could if a woodchuck could chuck wood

Sister Sue sells sea shells. She sells sea shells on shore. The shells she sells are sea shells she sees. Sure she sees shells she sells

You’ve known me to light a night light on a light night like tonight. There’s no need to light a night light on a light night like tonight, for a night light’s a slight light on tonight’s light night

Some short words or phrases can be interpreted as tongue-twisters when repeated a number of times fast. You have to say them aloud (try it!):

Thin Thing

French Friend

Red Leather, Yellow Leather

Unique New York

Sometimes Sunshine

Irish Wristwatch

Big Whip

Whatever their length, words have provided excellent material for games from the earliest times. Another of the more pleasing arrangements is the palindrome, which is a word that is spelt the same backwards as forwards. The Germans have even come up with a palindromic word Eibohphobie that translates as a fear of palindromes. All in all, they can create some bizarre meanings:

neulo taas niin saat oluen (Finnish) knit again, so that you will get a beer

Nie fragt sie: ist gefegt? Sie ist gar fein (German) she never asks: has the sweeping been done? She is very refined

in girum imus nocte et consumimur igni (Latin) we enter the circle after dark and are consumed by fire

nipson anomemata me monan opsin (Ancient Greek) wash off my sins, not only my face (written on the edge of a well or a font in Constantinople, where ps is y)

The Finns have the three longest palindromic words:

saippuakivikauppias a soapstone seller

saippuakuppinippukauppias a soap cup trader

solutomaattimittaamotulos the result from a measurement laboratory for tomatoes

while here are some of the better and longer European palindromic phrases that aren’t too non-sensical:

a dyma’r addewid diweddar am y da (Welsh) and here is the recent promise about the livestock

Socorram-me, subi no onibus em Marrocos (Portuguese) help me I took a bus in Morocco